The Valley

Assemblage by newcomer Sharon Coughran run the range from peaks to valleys. A couple of works have that amateurish quality of disconnected objects that should resonate with meaning but never quite do. Luckily more pieces are promising, poetic statements about the politics of post-feminist relationships between the sexes and the existential anxiety that spares no one.

Coughran builds long vertical clear boxes, layering objects within them so that they carry the eye--a little like Oriental perspective--from the bottom foreground to the upper background. “Picking Up the Pieces” traces a charged storyline starting with crude little stairs made from wood chips that are nearly buried in real puzzle pieces. They guide the eye upward to a balance scale holding on each side the tiny homes from a Monopoly game (the plastic propriety of suburban bliss?). Above this, a Venus sprawls in a temple; she’s a stiff paper cut-out, her throne is paper gilt. Other pieces also seem intensely autobiographic, yet open-ended enough to tug at chords in all of us. (Orlando Gallery, 14553 Ventura Blvd., to March 5.)